Create a Grungy 3D Text Poster in Photoshop

Step 7

Duplicate the text layer and name the top one “Text Shading”.

Step 8

If you zoom in to your text, you’ll notice that the edges are jagged.

To fix this, we have to improve the render quality. Select the text layer (not the “Text Shading” layer) then go to Layer > Smart Objects > Edit Contents. Photoshop will tell you that it will open the layer as a new document and you just need to save and close it to apply the changes. Click OK to close the dialog.

After you click OK, Photoshop will create a new document with your 3D text in its own layer.

Step 9

Go to Window > 3D. In the Quality drop down, pick “Ray Traced Final”.

Photoshop will start to render your text and you’ll see a blue grid-box scanning across your text. Just let this run for awhile until it stops or the quality is good enough for you. If you pause the render by accident (by clicking anywhere), you can resume it by going to 3D > Resume Progressive Render.

Here’s what the text looks like after rendering – no more jagged edges!

Step 10

Go to File > Close. Photoshop will ask if you want to save the file – click yes.

Right-click on the text layer then choose Rasterize Layer.

Step 11

You should now be back in your original Photoshop document. Select the “Text Shading” layer then go to Layer > Smart Object > Edit Contents. In the 3D Panel (Window > 3D), click on the Edit button.

In the 3D Render Settings, pick “Line Illustration” from the preset then set the Crease Threshold to 2 and Line Width to 4. Click OK.

Here’s what your 3D text looks like.

Step 12

Save the document then close it. Go back to your original document.

Select the text layer (should be your middle layer) then go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation. You’ll get a popup with the settings for this new layer. If you don’t see this, make sure you added the adjustment layer from the menu (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation) and not from the Layers palette.